I have been reading up on the Amish for one chapter of the book on legal systems very different from ours that I'm currently working on. They provide an example of what I think of as an embedded legal system—a group that is under the authority of an external legal system, but also has its own legal system which it succeeds in enforcing on its members. Other examples are modern gypsies and Jewish communities during the diaspora, which were often given the right to impose Jewish law on their members by their gentile rulers.

It occurred to me that one could view the Amish as a working example of a form of anarchy. It is a very strange form, since the rules that the Amish are under are considerably more constraining—including rules on what styles of clothing they can wear, rules against owning automobiles or flying on airplanes, and much else—than the rules the rest of us are under. But those rules are all voluntarily accepted, and the system that generates them may reasonably be viewed as a competitive system of private law.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Firearm prohibitionists love to use tragedy to leverage their agenda. So, it’s important for gun rights advocates to stand their ground and fire back (proverbially) whenever this happens.

I posted a graphic on Facebook claiming the average number of people killed in mass shootings when stopped by police is 18.25, and the average number of people killed in a mass shooting when stopped by civilians is 2.2. I based it on 10 shootings I found listed on some timeline somewhere. I honestly don’t even remember where. I presented the case studies in a blog post on the Silver Circle blog and I did the math myself.

The graphic was met with great enthusiasm and much skepticism. Leave it to Facebook users to demand an audit on a meme. So, I started over, only much more meticulous this time. I compiled and analyzed 100 shootings, noting my methodology, and I am now prepared to present my findings, complete with links to the data. But here’s a spoiler… It’s not that different.

The average number of people killed in mass shootings when stopped by police is 14.29

The average number of people killed in a mass shooting when stopped by a civilian is 2.33

In this video a young man is sitting in his car when he tells the police officer asking him questions to “shut up.” What happens next is a cookie cutter case of power trip brutality caused by the cop escalating violence to unneeded levels. The man was not resisting in the least, yet this cop proceeds to pummel him with his night stick and then pepper sprays him.

It is unclear what exactly caused the cop to detain this individual but it is not at all unclear as to who escalated the situation to violence.

Monday, December 2, 2013

This is another plus for Bitcoins, if you are attacked by the government they can claim they have "confiscated" so many Bitcoins from Ross Ulbricht but in reality they have confiscated shit! Unless they know the password and code to the Bitcoin wallet they will never have possession of the Bitcoins. As a matter of fact if Ross trusted someone and shared that info with them they may have already removed the Bitcoins from the wallet. This is why the state hates bitcoins, it makes them look like fools. The state cannot control Bitcoins.

In a recent article at The Independent Political Report, James Gray perpetuates the fairy-tale of the police as heroes to be looked up to. He writes, “One of the most noble public servant positions in our society is a police officer. These men and women often have difficult jobs, and frequently do not get the credit and appreciation they deserve.” If police were these heroes, then stories of botched drug raids would not be a standard news story. People would be outraged every time they heard about an officer killing a family pet, or an innocent human being, because it would be so unusual. Instead, these stories are routine, because the image of police as heroic public servants is a myth.

I would like to first state that Judge Gray does give one good piece of advice for anyone who is ever stopped by police, “keep your hands in plain sight.” This should be done for your own safety, because the police often overreact when they are startled. I have first-hand experience in this. The only time I have ever had a gun drawn on me, it was from a police officer who was responding to a suspected robbery, but he was at the wrong house. If I had made any sudden movements I would likely have lost my life. On another occasion an officer stopped me for a seat belt violation, and when he approached my vehicle he had his hand on his weapon. I put my hands on the wheel for my own safety, because you never know what behavior to expect, although police tend to be on their best behavior when they know they’re being filmed.